Tuesday, November 14, 2006

All news is good news...

A number of people have clued us in on the "heated" discussion going on right now at Slate.com about the Esurance campaign. Since we obviously have a stake in the matter (not to mention in the middle of another spot right now), we had to peek and see what was up.

Check out the "Discuss" section to see both sides of the debate. There's always that fine line in commercials of selling product vs. trying to make the coolest-darn thing out there. From our perspective, it's just amazing to see how many people have a strong opinion one way or the other. Some of our favorite quotes:

"Why I don't like Erin Esurance: every time the bad guys show up, she runs away! What happens when they finally corner her? I want an insurance company that'll fight for me, not run!"

and

"if we're following the logic of this article, then please explain to me what a red haired clown and a big purple...thing have to do with selling hamburgers. how are pink bunnies related to batteries? why is a british gecko selling car insurance? how does a colonel ensure that i'm getting some quality fried chicken?"

Love it or hate it, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into the nine spots Ghostbot has been involved with so far. So it's nice to know at the very least we're making an impact on the report card of pop culture.

28 Comments:

The first one made sense. As a superspy, she needed to rent a car from dude, and got the proof of insurance on the spot. And the ones where the dude's car gets destroyed (skiing one?) talk about filing claims. But secret messages in cafes and hidden codes in museums and robo-football are off-mark. It just turned into a Ghostbot animated series with all the dialog replaced with advertizing. If you were doing a show with old-fashioned sponsorship breaks (hey, Jack Benny, I just love swan soap!) it may work better.

Wait... Erin was trying to sell me something all this time?!? I feel so used! I thought we had something special going on, Erin... how could you do this to me?!? I'm going to drive myself off a cliff, if I can only find some insurance for my car somewhere...

hey, im just a nobody television viewer and i heard about this discussion on cartoon brew, but id like to say that i love the ads. if i hear about new one comming on i wanna go and see it.

it might not be the best way to sell car insurance, but i find it more than admirable that you seem to be pushing the art and story of your animated spots beyond the bounds of traditional advertising. i especially like the effort given to give more character to erin and her nameless buddy.

it also might intrest you to know that there is a sizeable library of erin porn on the net, which is growing every day. to give you an idea of how well liked that character is...

holey moley! What a ballyhoo! It always surprises me when I re-discover the fact that as much as we who make thse things (comics cartoons etc) care about what we do there are people out there in the "real world" who have even more passion for it that we do....

I think you must be doing something right to have people talking this much but beware... Curdled gomer-love is one of th ebitterst tatses in the universe...

blah. I had considered using harsher words (maybe because it's 3:30am and I'm not really tired which makes me annoyed to begin with)

There are a lot of commercials that go "off topic" with its various elements. The problem? Well... You're not going to get everyone to understand what's being sold. It's a lowest common denominator thing.

...you're still going to have to leave some of the denser people behind in order to deliver a commercial the bulk of the people will go for. As much as some of the animation doesn't actually show images of selling insurance, they do grab attention. If people can't listen to the dialogue while all the action is going on, I suspect they can't walk and chew gum at the same time...

Maybe the commercials are steadily getting too high brow or maybe too artsy. Who can say for sure? It's being recognised by a lot of people and I'd say a good chunk of the mission objective has been accomplished in that respect.

Whatever. It all merely serves to make the Ghostbot and Esurance name more recognised. Erin too.

If the client loves em (and clearly they do since they keep coming back for more)...then you guys have done your job. And if the viewer loves em or hates em...people are talking about these spots and I guess thats the goal of advertising. How many times has a weak script, or mildly interesting pitch been juiced up by adding flashy visuals? It seems to me that you guys are taking a product (that rates pretty low on the fun/excitement scale) and you are successfully presenting it in a clever and interesting way. Awesome job!

You have a right to your opinion, but I'd have to disagree. Anime movies are crappily drawn, have only two possible mouth movements - wide open and tiny closed, the physical features are undetailed, and the animation consists mostly of characters in fixed positions with trippy backgrounds. Anime does not compare to the esurance spots.

The one way I can tell it isn't anime is because I can watch it without having an overwhelming urge to change the channel.

Hello, this is Sergio from Madrid (Spain).Sorry if my english is not as bad as i remembered.I´ve just red the critic published at slate.com. Don´t trust those words, it´s the envy the one that talks.I´ve followed your work since I started as an novel flash animator in 2000. Right now, I could consider myself an amateur animator ¡because they pay me for my works!Actually I don´t believe that the are Flash animators that provide good examples on the net. But a few exceptions are over any critics or unnecesary commentaries.I really think that you are one of them. I was very happy the day a discovered you again at ghostbot.com, and so impressed after seen the great work you were doing with Esurance, because it joins cool cartoon animation with a typical campaign that always been so boring (one of those days you´ll to see that kind of commercials made in Spain).

Congratulations! And keep on doing them.

There are nothing really cool, but if you want, take a look at my blogspot.http://sergiofblog.blogspot.com/